settima

1930s

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (Lothar Mendes + Alexander Korda, 1936)

Jun

15

fruit

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936)

George McWhirter Fotheringay (Roland Young) waking up to an abundance of tropical foods in a crystal bowl, plus multiple expensive watches. His ill-fitting pajamas miss a button. DP: Harold Rosson.

“As I want it, so it will be!”

– George McWhirter Fotheringay

Kid 'N' Hollywood [Kid in Hollywood] (Charles Lamont, 1933)

Jun

12

Child Labor Day

Kid 'N' Hollywood (1933)

A movie set on a movie set in Kid 'N' Hollywood. Shirley Temple can be seen on her knees scrubbing the floor as the character Morelegs Sweettrick. Standing next to her with a bullhorn and adult spats is Arthur J. Maskery as the tyrannical movie director Frightwig von Stumblebum. As in all the Baby Burlesk shorts, the kids are only half-dressed with their diapers showing.

 

Shirley Temple was “discovered” at the age of three by then-casting director Charles Lamont and promptly shot to stardom is his satirical Baby Burlesks: short talkies starring toddlers in diapers (a burlesque being a short, humorous skit). The gag was that the kids behaved and spoke like adults, seemingly unaware of being #children.

“This isn’t playtime, kids, it’s work.”

– Charles Lamont, Baby Burlesk director

In the Baby Burlesk Kid 'N' Hollywood, Temple plays a Hollywood hopeful called Morelegs Sweettrick, who gets her break when the star doesn't feel like showing up (kids, right? no discipline).

 

While Kid 'N' Hollywood is relatively innocent, others in the series are much more sexualised (War Babies (1932) stars Temple as prostitute Charmaine) or plain racist (Kid 'in' Africa (1933) with Temple as Madame Cradlebait, bringing civilisation to Black kids portraying fearsome cannibals).

 

I'm not the one to take events from the past out of context and apply modern-day sensibilities to them, and with the advent of #ChildLabor laws for #Hollywood child actors, many of the horrors recalled by Temple and her peers are history. School is mandatory, long hours restricted, and using twins to split the workload is definitely not unheard of.

 

And then I watched teevee, and saw chubby, precocious blondes with dental plates to hide their missing baby teeth, wearing lipstick and baby-dolls, grinding and crooning with no backup in sight. And I remember Miss Temple say:

“Any star can be devoured by human adoration, sparkle by sparkle.”

– Shirley Temple

A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Dieterle + Max Reinhardt, 1935)

Jun

10

Superman Week

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)

Oberon (Victor Jory) – King of the Fairies – on his horse with Puck (Mickey Rooney) – a trickster sprite. While they ride of, Oberon's cape flows behind them through the trees, supported by the fae. A lot of the other-worldly fairy sparkle was accomplished by generous amounts of DuPont® cellophane and cinematographer Hal Mohr's contribution of trimming the trees with aluminium paint, cobwebs, and small metal particles. DP: Hal Mohr.

Capes, cloaks, and mantles are everywhere in Dieterle and Reinhardt's lavishly outfitted A Midsummer Night's Dream. The dreamlike #CostumeDesign by Max Rée and the uncredited Milo Anderson is as much as a personality as #Shakespeare's characters are.

“Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray…”

– Oberon, Act 5, Scene 1

Any reports of Kenneth Anger's presence as the Changeling Prince are greatly exaggerated.

Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)

May

15

National Nylon Stocking Day

Footlight Parade (1933)

Nan Prescott (Joan Blondell), semi-dressed, slipping on – then off – her suspender. DP: George Barnes.

Legs legs legs and then some! While Miss Bitc… err Rich (Claire Dodd) chats with Nan's boss Chester Kent (James Cagney), Nan (Joan #Blondell) absent-mindedly puts on two #stockings on one (lovely) leg, removes it, then slips it onto the other.

“Meow!”

Mädchen in Uniform [Girls in Uniform] (Leontine Sagan + Carl Froelich, 1931)

May

9

Teacher Appreciation Day

Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

Manuela (Hertha Thiele) in her Don Carlos costume with her beloved teacher, Frl. Von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). Note the similarity with Garbo vehicle Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933). DPs: Reimar Kuntze & Franz Weihmayr.

A goodnight #kiss on the lips was all it takes for 14-year old Manuela to fall for her teacher, Fräulein Von Bernburg. Then, while celebrating her rousing performance as the male lead in the play Don Carlos, Manuela gaily blurts out that yes, she indeed is in love with her teacher! This lack of discipline can't go unpunished, with devastating results.

“What you call sin, I call the great spirit of love, which takes a thousand forms.”

– Fräulein Von Bernburg

Der ewige Jude [The Eternal Jew] (Fritz Hippler, 1940)

Apr

4

World Rat Day

Der ewige Jude (1940)

Nazi propaganda postcard advertising an exhibition in the library of the Deutsche Museum in Munich called Der ewige Jude: Große politische Schau (“The Eternal Jew: Great Political Exhibition”). The front of the card is a reproduction of the film poster. The card is dated 1937, which is at odds with the information in this blogpost. DPs: A. Endrejat, Anton Haffner, R. Hartmann, F.C. Heeve, Heinz Kluth, Erich Stoll & H. Winterfeld.

I took a long time considering what to nominate for today's topic. This is not an easy one. And frankly, barely qualifies as as film.

 

 

In 1939, the faux #documentary Der ewige Jude, directed by the leader of Goebbels' #propaganda film department Fritz Hippler, started production. Scenes shot in Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland were intercut with real, but out-of-context documentary footage, giving it a false sense of authenticity./

“Where rats turn up, they spread diseases and carry extermination into the land. They are cunning, cowardly and cruel, they travel in large packs, exactly the way the Jews infect the races of the world.”

– narrator

Het kwade oog [Le mauvais oeil / The Evil Eye] (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1937)

Feb

4

Farmers Day

Het kwade oog (1937)

A farmer in the bottom of the screen holding a scythe against an imposing Flemish sky. DP: François Rents.

In the small East Flemish villages inhabited by non-actors, where the story takes place, one day, a vagrant shows up. The villagers say he has the evil eye. Mills burned and harvest cursed, they say. The man is cursed, by a deep sense of guilt, over something from the past that slowed down time.

De tweede politieagent: “Jean, hebt ge ze?” [het spel vertraagt]

– Herman Teirlinck, De vertraagde film (1922)

Het kwade oog occupies that small frozen moment between sound and silence. With an acute sense of what's possible in cinema, even more than in literature and theatre, Dekeukeleire applies what he had Eisenstein seen do to with his interpretation of Brecht's episches Theater (“epic theatre”).

Zéro de conduite: Jeunes diables au collège [Zero for Conduct] (Jean Vigo, 1933)

Jan

24

International Day Of Eduction

Zéro de conduite: Jeunes diables au collège (1933)

The students on a rooftop, saluting as if part of an army. DP: Boris Kaufman.

“War is declared! Down with monitors and punishment! Long live rebellion! Liberty or death! Hoist our flag on the school roof! Stand firm with us tomorrow! We'll bombard them with rotten old books, dirty tin cans, smelly boots and all the ammo piled up in the attic! We'll fight those old goats on commemoration day! Onward!”

– Tabard, one of the students

Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932)

Jan

8

World Typing Day

Grand Hotel (1932)

Despite Flaemmchen – Joan Crawford in her breakout role – is introduced as a “little stenographess”, that's clearly a typewriter on her desk. DP: William H. Daniels.

“Grand Hotel… always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

– Flaemmchen

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)

Jan

6

National Smith Day

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Mr. Jefferson Smith (a squeaky young Jimmy Stewart) holds up a travel-guide of Washington, D.C. to Saunders (Jean Arthur). DP: Joseph Walker.

“The Chair recognizes… Senator Smith!”

– President of Senate